Poland beat Ukraine to enter last 16 (updated)

Jakub Blaszczykowski' s goal in the 54th minute helped Poland beat Ukraine here on Tuesday and enter last 16 on second in group.

Poland made an energetic start and had two quick-fire chances to take the lead, but Ukraine suddenly imposed themselves and missed two good chances to score through Andry Yarmolenko and Yevhen Konoplyanka.

Poland' s midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski, 30, scored through a corner kick in 54th minute.

After this match, Poland got 7 points as well as Germany who beat Northern Ireland 1-0, but they were still second to the world champions due to goals differences.

"For the first time in Polish history we have qualified from the Euros group stage, the first time in three attempts," Poland coach Adam Nawalka said.

"It was fairly impressive that we got seven points from three matches in a difficult group. We didn't concede a goal, maybe we could have scored more," Nawalka said. "But as the table shows only the goal difference is against our favour. It was a difficult match today, it was maybe even more difficult than against Germany."

"You should never disrespect Ukraine. They have some very good players in their team. We had to defend well. We didn't have as much possession as we wished." he added.

Before this match, Ukraine had lost to Germany and Northern Ireland and are already eliminated. Ukraine failed to score a single goal in three matches. Endit